When Mike Smith waits in the Churchill Downs paddock Friday on Midnight Bisou, his Kentucky Oaks contender, the feeling will come to him again.

He is too old, at 52, to have this feeling, some might think. But it keeps coming. It is the one that shows Smith that after 33,076 starts, 36 years and one Hall of Fame induction, he is not ready to be finished yet.

He cannot do anything this weekend that he has not already done. He will not be “turning back the clock” — or at least not far since he just won the Oaks last year at 51. He will only be returning to the biggest stage, again.

“If you dream of playing football since you were little, if you dream of playing baseball, you dream of winning the World Series, you dream of winning the Super Bowl,” Smith said. “This is no different. This is our Super Bowl.”

The men who have hired Smith to ride their contenders to victory this weekend are not nervous.

“When you have Mike Smith on your horse, it just instills enormous confidence in you," said Midnight Bisou co-owner Jeff Bloom said.

Bob Baffert, who will saddle 3-1 morning-line favorite Justify in the Derby on Saturday, said he will not stay up at night worrying about his jockey.

“To me, the pressure will be more on Mike Smith,” Baffert said. “If I was riding (the horse), I’d feel a lot of pressure.”

Smith is riding the horse, and yes, he feels pressure. Why wouldn’t he?

“You’re riding one of the favorites in the Kentucky Derby, you’d be lying if you said, ‘No, I got no pressure,’” Smith said. “You might as well not be doing this. If you ain’t nervous, you ain’t ready.”

It is not new for Smith to feel that at Churchill Downs. But it is a striking storyline for those in attendance that one of the sport’s greatest jockeys keeps coming back as strong as the year before.

Smith’s career has evolved to the point where he’s more selective about the races he runs. He finished last year with 275 starts, the fewest of his career, and may trim that number again with just 91 in four months this year.

But he continues to produce, winning a career-high 25 percent of his starts last year, including the Oaks aboard Abel Tasman and the Pegasus World Cup aboard Arrogate.

“Even though, at this stage, he could just sort of kick back, put his feet up on the chair and say, ‘If you want to ride me, go ahead,’” Bloom said, “I think he works even harder now than he ever has.”

A number of forces have held Smith steady at 52. His dedication to physical training has kept him fit. His experience has made him wiser over the years. And he managed to reset himself 20 years ago when he thought he never would again.

In 1998, of course, Smith suffered two devastating falls, one that broke his shoulder in March and another that crushed two vertebrae in his back that August. The first eight years of the ’90s brought Smith eight Breeder’s Cup wins, a Preakness Stakes title and two Outstanding Jockey awards.

In 1998, Smith ran fewer races than in any year since his first in 1982, and he began to wonder. Would he ever get back to where he was? And if he didn’t, could he keep going?

Smith healed. He rededicated himself to his fitness. He moved his home base from New York to California for a change of scenery.

“Before you know it, you’re just one good horse away from getting back to where you were,” Smith said.

For Smith, that horse was Azeri. To start his career, the horse won 14 of 15 starts, all under Smith from 2001-03. Smith won the 2005 Derby aboard Giacomo and the Belmont Stakes in 2013, completing a career Triple Crown.

He missed three of five Derbys after his injuries. He has now run in 13 of the last 14, answering the questions he had in the lowest part of his career.

“You try to remember what it takes to get you there,” Smith said. “I know what it takes to be on top of my game.”

Smith’s filly in the Oaks, Midnight Bisou, is a 5-2 morning-line contender, just behind Monomoy Girl at 2-1.

“(The jockeys are) only as good as the horse they’re riding, and the thing about it is that a lot of these riders get nervous, there’s a lot of pressure for them,” Baffert said. “But Mike’s been there so many times.”

Even as he chooses his mounts selectively, Smith saw a gem in Midnight Bisou. She lost by a nose in her first two starts under different riders and has now won three straight under Smith, most recently the Santa Anita Oaks.

Saturday, Smith will ride Justify for Baffert. The two have worked together often in the past, but they have never won a Triple Crown race together. When Baffert saddled American Pharoah in 2015, he tabbed Victor Espinoza as the jockey.

“Bob is really good about using more than just one rider,” Smith said. “I’m just blessed that I get to ride the horses I do for him.”

Baffert said Tuesday he never thought he’d ride a 52-year-old in the Derby, but he goes to Smith because he knows what the jockey can do. Last year in the Oaks, Smith brought Abel Tasman back from last at the first turn. Earlier, in Dubai, he did the same with Arrogate after the horse broke poorly and ended up caught between horses on either side of him.

“Mike finds ways to get things done,” Baffert said. “Sometimes you have to have an audible. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. He’ll come back.”